“support the least intrusive, least inefficient government intervention available”
…which is for the government to not intervene. Not a penny or minute wasted.
Andrew
Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Bad Andrew
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Max_OK
Re climatereason’s post on July 15, 2013 at 12:14 pm
Toni, thanks for the link to the report.
The Guardian had an article on wind farms complaining to OFGEM about being treated unfairly because transmission charges are based on distance. I’m not sure why they think it’s unfair, since there’s some loss of energy through transmission, but maybe the charge is greater than the value of the lost energy.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by jacobress
““the least intrusive, least inefficient government intervention available”
To achieve nothing…. It’s the best road to nowhere….
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Rob Starkey
The issue(s) over a carbon tax on CO2 in the USA seem the same whether a person is a libertarian, democrat or republican. The question is (or should be) what is the tax going to accomplish and is the accomplishment worth the cost?
Q- Will an additional carbon tax raise revenue from the government?
A-Yes, it could generate a vast amount of revenue depending on the amount of the tax.
Q- Would a carbon tax eliminate the US budget problem?
A-That is unknown unless or until such a tax was presented as a part of an overall package that examined overall expenses and revenues. A significant concern is that such an increase in government revenues helps to solidify the governments expanded role in society. Many believe it is better to initially cut government spending to the maximum extent possible and then only to add an additional tax as a last resort to achieve a balanced budget.
Q- Will it have a positive impact on the climate or the weather and if so when?
A-This one is very difficult to answer with certainty, but generally nothing noticeable would change. The amount of a reduction in CO2 emissions from the US would result in only very modest changes in overall CO2 concentrations worldwide. It seems highly unlikely that the resultant changes would have any noticeable impact on the climate within the lifetimes of those incurring the cost of the tax.
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Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by MikeP
When you leave out a crucial part of the physics, it doesn’t matter how well your part of the physics is understood. You start from the assumption that radiative physics describes the fundamental aspect of energy transfer in the atmosphere and ignore everything that has been learned about atmospheric dynamics (and what is still not fully understood). Putting radiative physics into GCMs does not get around this problem as GCMs do not well represent the actual vertical convective energy transfers in the atmosphere.
In your dog analogy, this is about like assuming that the man is walking his dog to the neighborhood park because he turned right after leaving his house, only to find out that he was headed to the pet store for dog shampoo instead. If you hypothesize a long enough leash, you can’t tell the difference!
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Tom Scharf
“If you have looked dispassionately at the relevant science, and you are satisfied, based on the preponderance of evidence, that GHG emissions pose no risk, so be it. Otherwise, read on.”
Uhhhh…no.
“no risk” is not the correct threshold.
Provable risk and more importantly actual damages that you can prove were a result of carbon sins. You are asking for society to “pre-pay” based on potential risk that results in even more dubious *** future *** potential damages.
Why would we not wait for these damages to actually occur so we don’t have to guess how much to tax someone for their carbon sins?
If this was the threshold for levying a punitive tax, I could tax my neighbor now for the damage his tree will cause after it falls on my house in 20 years.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Tom Scharf
“The issue of climate change is a source of cognitive dissonance for libertarians. ”
Right, because the only possibility is that libertarians are brain damaged, not that they have merit to their argument.
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Comment on The forecast for 2018 is cloudy by curryja
Hi Steve, excellent post!
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Bruce99
A tax is never the answer to the problem of humanity. Tax generates nothing but waste through excessive administration costs and the perpetual increases needed to maintain compliance with laws that administer the tax.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Max_OK
I thank Ed Dolan for his two previous postings on carbon tax as well as this most recent one.
Tax revenues are necessary and IMO there’s no better way to raise revenues than taxing what should be discouraged, which in this case is the inefficient consumption of fossil fuels, a depletable and polluting energy resource.
I favor a revenue-neutral carbon tax because I believe it will be induce public acceptance. I know, however, if such a tax is successful in reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and encouraging development and use of renewable energy, other taxes will have to be raised if revenue is to be maintained.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Max_OK
Tom, tax as prepayment for potential risk is nothing new. Consider tax revenues spent on defense as one example.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Ronald Abate
A carbon tax is about CO2. The EPA has labeled CO2 a pollutant, a purely political decision, as CO2 is essential to life, just like oxygen. Serious scientists mock that ruling as absurd.
Based upon careful analysis of ice cores, serious scientists have determined that increases in CO2 follow increases in temperature by about 800 years.
While CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it greenhouse effect declines as the concentration increases, which has forced climate modelers to include positive feedbacks in their models in order to project dangerous anthropogenic global warming. Those “positive” feedbacks have never been verified. It is more likely that the feedbacks are negative. As an aside Alan Carlin, once a long time employee of the EPA and now a former employee, was told to keep his mouth shut when he raised the issue with his superiors that the climate models the IPCC was using for their assessments have never been verified. He was told to keep his mouth shut. You can find a copy of this memo using Google search.
Serious scientists are studying the ability of cosmic galactic radiation (“CGR”) to influence the creation of clouds – the CERN “Cloud experiment”. Changes in the sun’s activity influences the amount of CGR reaching the earth. Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark has produced some serious scientific analysis that makes the CGR theory quite plausible, so plausible, in fact, that Jasper Kirkby, after almost a decade of resistance by mainstream climate alarmists, was able to obtain the funding and resources at CERN to the pursue this theory. Preliminary result have not falsified the theory. More work needs to be done.
Recent satellite imagery indicates that the increase in CO2 during the 20th century, which, by the way, has been within the bounds of historic natural variability (e.g., the MWP, was as warm as it is today and that was prior to the burning of hydrocarbons) has produced a greening of the earth. Apparently, increases in CO2 permit trees to utilize water more efficiently. Other real and potential benefits of higher levels of CO2 have not been seriously studied because of the alarmism, which seems very much ideological and well as “special interest” driven (Jeff Immelt at GE wants very badly to sell his company’s wind turbines). What university scientist in his right mind would submit a request to government to fund the study of the benefits of a more CO2 enriched, warmer atmosphere, in spite of the fact that horticulturalists pump warm CO2 into their greenhouses to improve plant hardiness and yield.
What you do not understand about Libertarians is that they are highly suspicious of the threat that the powerful will trample the freedoms and rights of the individual. There is today no entity more powerful than government. In that regard, what Libertarians take to heart is President Eisenhower’s warning in his Farewell Address : “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is to be gravely regarded”.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Willis Eschenbach
Tom, excellent point and well said.
Max, remember Tom said “provable risk”. The risk from aggressive neighbors is beyond the need for proof, it’s happened throughout history.
Damage done by carbon, on the other hand? Little observational support if any for such risk.
w.
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Comment on Lisbon Workshop on Reconciliation: Part VI by http://b1y.de/
I’m really loving the theme/design of your site. Do you ever run into any browser compatibility issues? A couple of my blog audience have complained about my site not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Opera. Do you have any advice to help fix this problem?
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Tom Scharf
He’s bringing it up in a legal sense with the “preponderance of evidence” terminology. I read this as a justification of a punitive tax based on damages to others, not a collective effort to solve a problem.
The present fossil fuel energy sector is being punished for future sins here. While it is not politically correct to allow these evil people to have the right to defend themselves, they do and should have the right to force the government to justify the ruination of their business.
And estimates of future damages based on climate models doesn’t rise to this level in my opinion. There is almost zero evidence that CO2 has caused significant damages to date. That matters.
And don’t confuse the issue, I’m speaking of CO2 here, not the more nasty emissions that have provable health consequences and technical solutions.
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Stephen Rasey
<i>its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it</i>
My dear Progressives, if the shoe fits....
Perhaps it is the progressives that reject science because they dislike the consequential dismantling of big obtrusive government.
IF CO2 is a pollutant, THEN a <b>fair, blind, universal</b> carbon tax is an efficient way to make the polluter pay. But the payment must be based upon the harm done for this to be true. It is the amount of harm, even it's sign, that is debatable. Given the predicate conditions, a pollution tax is an efficient means of making the polluter pay.
But <b>pay whom?</b> Where will that tax revenue go? Even if CO2 is a pollutant, where the <b>revenue</b> goes from a carbon tax is a manifest evil. The influx of carbon tax revenue will create its own political and social pollution, a cesspool of corruption, and metastasize a cancer of totalitarian governments and bureaucracy.
We object to the carbon tax, not because of its efficiency, but of the greater pollution to society from all that lucre in the hands of statists than it purports to ameliorate
The soul of the Libertarian:
<blockquote>Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. -- [Adam Smith: <a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/quotes" rel="nofollow">The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part IV, Chapter I</a>, pp.184-5, para. 10. ] </blockquote>
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Willis Eschenbach
Yeah, Max, that's worked out so well in <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/11/british-columbia-british-utopia/" rel="nofollow"><b>British Columbia</b></a> ...
w.
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Comment on AGW skeptics in the professional community by David Springer
There are no high roads in the culture wars. Some roads are just lower than others and there’s no limit to how low anyone can go. There is however plenty of room to rise above it by just shutting the phuck up. Said containment of hot air has naturally bouyant properties.
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Comment on AGW skeptics in the professional community by David Springer
projection
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Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Max_OK
GaryM, I’m afraid I have you at a disadvantage because I know Vancouver pretty well. Mapquest starts at City Hall which is about 6 miles North of the Fraser River bridge where the city ends, so the mid-point would be about 3 miles South of City Hall, and starting your trip from there would reduce the Blaine, WA round-trip to about 57 miles (62.92 – 6 = 56.92) and put the cost of the trip at $31.60. Just to break even on the $1.71 per gallon cheaper gas at Blaine a Vancouver motorists would have to buy 18.5 gallons of gas, and few cars have tanks with that much capacity unless the tank is entirely empty. So driving from Vancouver to Blaine and back just for cheaper gas ends of costing both time and money.
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